"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Thomas Jefferson
Sept. 23, 1800

Monday, November 1, 2010

Understanding What Tomorrow Is Really About, From A Brit

Janet Daley, of Britain's Telegraph newspaper, visited the United States recently and brought back a better understanding of the Tea Party movement, and what it means to the future of the country and the Republican party, than I've read in any American press. Here's her take what she learned from her GOP friends...

My Republican friends, perhaps surprisingly, were not gloating. They were too furious. But contrary to the superficial British assumption (heavily promoted by the BBC), they were not devoting their excoriation exclusively to the Obama Administration – or even to its clique of Congressional henchmen, led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. That they were opposed to the Big State, European social democratic model of government which Obama had imported to Washington went almost without saying. But they were at least as angry with the leadership of their own party for having conceded far too much of the argument. 

Miss Daley hits the nail on the head. Tomorrow's elections are not about Democrats versus Republicans, they aren't even about what we have come to think of recently as liberal versus conservative. Tomorrow's elections are about restoring the principles that made the United States of America unique among the nations of the world. It's more about the state versus the individual than anything else.

Again, the Brit gets it...

What the grassroots rebellion is really about is an attempt to pull the Republican party back to its basic philosophy of low-tax, low-spend, small government: the great Jeffersonian principle that the best government is that which governs least.
Jeffersonian ideals, and a return to Jeffersonian democracy, are inspiring more of the Tea Partiers than perhaps even they know. And Thomas Jefferson was a Democrat.